Carolina Trip, Pt. 1: Cemeteries and Animals
Earlier this Winter I went to North and South Carolina. They both are beautiful states! Here are some photo's from the trip. A lot of these were taken from the car. While looking at the scenery as a car passenger, David taught me a road game that he use to play with his sisters called 'Cemeteries and Animals.' I like the name of it and think it would make a good band name... probably for an indie folk band. Basically, to play you count the number of animals you see on your side of the road. But if your competitor spots a cemetery on your side of the road, all your animals 'die.' But if you spot a cemetery on their side of the road their animals die. Kind of a morbid game, but we were in the South and Southern Gothics are one of my favorite genres. What I like about the game is that it is something that is not easily played on the west coast. Driving through California on road trips growing up, I'd see a lot of cows grazing on grassy hills, but cemeteries certainly are not prevalent. In the South, there are so many rickety cemeteries in front of beautiful churches. It makes the lonely roadsides feel alive with ghosts and history.
Some of the things we saw while in the car:
*South of the Border, which is a 'Mexico' themed amusement park, right in between North and South Carolina. All along the freeway are billboards featuring 'Padro' who eagerly encourages drivers to stop at South of the Border.
*Beautiful old houses and churches. I feel like I've been transplanted back in time!
We stopped for lunch at a diner called 'Huddle House.' There was not much for vegetarians there so I settled on a garden salad, boasting a variety of vegetables. When it came, it was basically a bed of withered iceberg lettuce with an exorbitant amount of chopped tomatoes plopped on top. Yuck! But it was worth going to 'Huddle House' because the diner seemed like a setting for a short story. There were three or four lonely people, sitting at booths or bar stools, just staring off into space. There were two tough looking truckers with hairy arms and tanned cheeks. They were eating lunch together, probably exchanging stories of the road. There were men with pot bellies and rough hands and an old woman with sad eyes and colorful clothes. Plus, our waitress had a super thick Southern accent. I am surprised how few people in the South have actual accents. I am a fan of almost all accents.